I’ve become a social media nomad and now that I see it, I’ll probably be more intentional about it.

I’ve stopped going to twitter entirely unless someone links me to something interesting. That’s been that way for a long time.

Most of my social energy the last couple years has been spent in the work slack, which is very active. This is fine, but I don’t want to lose those outside connections.

Mastodon in general has been great as a home base for connecting and random thoughts. I’ve met awesome people. If we’ve chatted, I probably consider them an internet friend.

I’ve been on various slack groups and discords over the years, some of them I’ve been on long enough that they feel like home and where my other internet friends live.

And over the last couple of months I’ve re-engaged with tumblr, which surprised me, but it’s just where I left it years ago and sometimes I need that chaotic rabid fandom energy in my life.

But I don’t feel completely tied down to any of these places and honestly barely spend more than a few minutes a week on any one of them. Some I don’t visit for months at a time. My various websites gather dust too, my profiles rarely get updates. I lurk a lot.

This ties into an idea my family chatted about recently around travel. We don’t travel, for the most part. Most of the world doesn’t travel either, and that’s okay. We talked about where that travel urge came from and if there was a way we would consider doing so. And we thought about migration patterns, the way nomadic tribes follow animal migrations. This is a form of travel, but when you come around to each seasonal place, you’re really home, just a different one. I imagine wealthy people with homes around the world are instinctively doing something similar. They’re not really traveling, because the place the go is familiar, it’s home.

I seem to be doing the same thing with my internet presence. I’m migrating from place to place, never too long in one. I think this is okay, it’s healthy. I’ll keep being a digital nomad, thanks.

Huh. I’ve listened to MCR’s new “Foundations of Decay” enough times now that yeah, I pretty much love it.

I don’t know what the song is actually about, but I do know that it’s resonating with me and there’s a few lyrics that feel particularly relevant.

It’s been giving me thoughts about how there’s a perception that being in your 40s means you have nothing left in the tank, well. Fuck that.

The previous generation got “over the hill” parties when they turned 40. Gen-X have been doing things a little differently. We’re still angry kids and outsiders.

The stagnation is there if we’re not paying attention. The weight of a thousand generations telling us middle age is the time to start preparing for the decline can drag you down fast.

It takes conscious effort to not lay in our own foundations of decay.

Get up, coward!

I wonder if it will ever stop feeling strange to review resumes for people that have their comp-sci Bachelors and Masters degrees.

As I grow into being a manager, I suspect this is something that will feel even weirder.

I have a high school diploma and a little continuing ed certificate, a few semesters of college (I dropped out twice).

I know it shouldn’t bug me. Formal education just isn’t the right fit for some folks, myself included. Yet, that feeling of being under-qualified rises every time.

This feeling has never really served me (other than maybe pushing me to work harder) and it’s overdue to be let go.

No idea how true this was, but for many years, it seemed that Jeff Buckley’s music was this little secret gem. Even long after “Sketches for” came out, his music seemed to remain underground.

A co-worker at the Barnes & Noble cafe where I was a barista handed me “Grace” not long after it came out and I’ve since handed it to a few others, who have handed it off to more.

I remember it being so rare to encounter someone who knew his music, but also hearing rumors that folks like Elton John loved the album, too.

It was like we were all in a strange little secret club. Do you know Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”? was part of the test to see if someone was potentially friend material.

I love that everyone gets to hear everything all at once now. It’s amazing to me that I can access so many amazing things I’ve missed myself over the years. Still, I often miss that little, intimate sharing, too, where you got handed a physical album by someone who tells you “This will change your life”.

I remember maybe a decade ago there was a big trend toward body mods of folks inserting tech into themselves. I’m guessing this is probably something still going on today.

But as I’m learning guitar I’m paying a lot of attention to the more organic modifications I’m making to myself.

I’m working on my posture. Electric guitars are relatively heavy and I have to watch for back and neck strain, as well as hand strain. So, there are muscles building up there to compensate for this new factor.

But the more extreme thing I’ve noticed is my finger callouses.

If you’ve never played guitar before, you may not know that pressing down metal strings can be a bit painful. At least at first.

It’s not bad, but it’s enough that your body starts to compensate. It says “okay, you keep doing this painful thing over and over, not just once like an accident” so it goes about toughening up that area.

So I’ve now got baby guitar player callouses on my fingers.

The interesting side effect of this is that, while it makes it much easier to play the guitar, it makes every other tactile interaction with the world a more muted experience. I can very clearly tell the difference when I touch something with my right, callous-free fingers vs my left.

I feel a lot more details with my right now. My left hand fingers feel like they have little pads on them. It’s weird and something that are part of a choice I’m making in playing. A small sacrifice to be sure, but a sacrifice nonetheless.

tl;dr bodies are weird and smart.